Euro and pound under pressure, U.S. stocks mixed

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower, giving up 134.97 points or 0.51% to finish at 26,462.08

The Standard and Poor's 500 was little changed, falling 1.08 points or 0.04% to 2,926.17

The Nasdaq Composite gained 16.67 points or 0.21% to 8,118.68

<p>NEW YORK, New York - U.S. stocks ended mixed on Thursday as investors fretted over second quarter earnings, oil prices, the state of the economy, the U.S.-China trade relations and a stronger U.S. dollar.</p><p>&quot;Second-quarter estimates continue to be reduced. That&rsquo;s telling you there&rsquo;s a lot of caution. That&rsquo;s coming from corporate management teams as they provide guidance and the market is following their lead,&quot; Lindsey Bell, investment strategist at CFRA Research in New York told Reuters on Thursday. &quot;We&rsquo;re still in a wait-and-see mode regarding the direction of the economy so nobody&rsquo;s willing to go all out in the market right now especially with valuations at a premium.&quot;</p><p>The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower, giving up 134.97 points or 0.51% to finish at 26,462.08.</p><p>The Standard and Poor&#39;s 500 was little changed, falling 1.08 points or 0.04% to 2,926.17.</p><p>The Nasdaq Composite gained 16.67 points or 0.21% to 8,118.68.</p><p>On foreign exchange markets the euro and British pound continued their downward spiral.</p><p>The heavily weakened euro was last quoted around the New York close at 1.1133.</p><p>The British pound fell to a fresh two-month low of 1.2896.</p><p>The Japanese yen surprisingly improved, to close out the day around 111.61.</p><p>The Swiss franc was little changed at 1.0204.</p><p>The Canadian dollar was virtually unchanged at 1.3486, as was the Australian dollar at 0.7014. The New Zealand dollar however gained more than a quarter-of-a-cent to 0.6624.</p><p>European markets all closed lower. The FTSE 100 in London lost 0.50%. The German Dax fell 0.25%, while the Paris-based CAC 40 was 0.33% lower.</p><p>It was a mixed bag in Asia where the Australian market was closed due to the Anzac Day public holiday.</p><p>The Nikkei 225 made gains, adding 0.48%.</p><p>In China stocks were lower. The Hong Kong Hang Seng fell 0.86% while the Shanghai Composite did worse, falling 2.43%.</p>